Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
No. of Recommendations: 2
And, as we said all along, there are executive levers that could have been pulled to secure the border. Joe Biden just...chose not to.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden...Biden administration weighs action to make it harder for migrants to get asylum and easier to deport them faster
Making it harder for migrants to qualify for asylum and deporting more recently arrived migrants are considered “low hanging fruit” and actions that can be taken quickly.The vast majority of migrants showing up want jobs. They're not fleeing political persecution. They're told when they arrive to ask for asylum and the administration's policy has been to parole them into the country.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is considering taking unilateral action without Congress to make it harder for migrants to pass the initial screening for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border and quickly deport recently arrived migrants who don’t meet the criteria, say three U.S. officials with knowledge of the deliberations.
The actions, which are still weeks away from finalization, are an effort to lower the number of migrants crossing the southern border illegally as immigration remains a top issue for voters heading into the 2024 presidential election.
Under the new policies, asylum officers would be instructed to raise the standards they use in their “credible fear interviews,” the first screening given to asylum-seekers who are trying to avoid deportation for crossing the border illegally. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be told to prioritize recently arrived migrants for deportation, in a “last in, first out” policy, the officials said.And there you go. A simple step that should have been taken years ago.
No. of Recommendations: 11
And there you go. A simple step that should have been taken years ago.It
was taken years ago. And it's been overturned by the courts several times now.
The
reason it's been overturned by the courts several times is because the criteria for conducting credible fear interviews is set in the statute. Section 8 CFR 208.30(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act spells out the criteria for granting/denying a credible fear determination, and adopted the current "significant possibility" standard:
"(2) An alien will be found to have a credible fear of persecution if there is a significant possibility, taking into account the credibility of the statements made by the alien in support of the alien's claim and such other facts as are known to the officer, that the alien can establish eligibility for asylum under section 208 of the Act or for withholding of removal under section 241(b)(3) of the Act."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/208.30Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden promulgated rules that tried to change that standard, and all of them have been found to violate the statute. That's why
changing the statute was part of the recently-killed border bill proposal - because Congress has to act to change the statutory criteria.
The "last in, first out" change that they're also considering is not likely to have any significant effect, either. Without increasing the number of personnel (immigration officers, judges, and other folks) it's not going to materially change the number of folks who actually end up being removed. You just shuffle who gets reviewed in the process first.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Under the new policies, asylum officers would be instructed to raise the standards they use in their “credible fear interviews,” the first screening given to asylum-seekers who are trying to avoid deportation for crossing the border illegally.
And we weren't averse to something well thought out and not pretextual, just averse to your *wink*wink* we can make up a fake medical excuse as a pretext to do an EO Title 42.
There's been enough people processed and rejected at the final hearing for us to be able to look at the commonalities of what's rejected and see if it's possible to screen those out. Also, I like the whole idea that if there is a safer place withing the person's country to go to they should go there first. Whether we can talk about countries they pass through is a good question and I'd ask Albaby.
You cannot compare your fake medical pretext to the above.
And there you go. A simple step that should have been taken years ago.
Then why didn't Trump do it? He loves EOs.
No. of Recommendations: 9
Also, I like the whole idea that if there is a safer place withing the person's country to go to they should go there first. Whether we can talk about countries they pass through is a good question and I'd ask Albaby.Not without amending the statute. Trump tried it. His efforts were struck down by the courts in 2019 (an injunction was imposed literally eight days after the rule was promulgated). Below is the link to the circuit court opinion upholding the lower court injunction, and the relevant quote that deals with this issue:
"Similarly, the safe-third-country bar under § 1158(a)(2)(A) allows the United States to deny asylum on the ground that the alien may be removed to and apply for asylum in a safe third country. But entirely absent from the Rule are the requirements under § 1158(a)(2)(A) that there be a formal agreement between the United States and the third country, and that there be a “full and fair” procedure for applying for asylum in that country."
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/20...TL;DR - the statute requires a formal agreement in order for the safe third-country exception to apply, so unless the U.S. has a formal agreement with a safe third-country (which we don't with any of the relevant central american countries), the Executive cannot impose that requirement administratively.
No. of Recommendations: 0
The reason it's been overturned by the courts several times is because the criteria for conducting credible fear interviews is set in the statute. Section 8 CFR 208.30(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act spells out the criteria for granting/denying a credible fear determination, and adopted the current "significant possibility" standard:
"(2) An alien will be found to have a credible fear of persecution if there is a significant possibility, taking into account the credibility of the statements made by the alien in support of the alien's claim and such other facts as are known to the officer, that the alien can establish eligibility for asylum under section 208 of the Act or for withholding of removal under section 241(b)(3) of the Act."
Trump had lousy lawyers; you educated me on that score with respect to the Administrative Practices Act. Surely Biden will have a creative way around the above.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Not without amending the statute. Trump tried it.
I think it might be safe to say most ideas have been tried by now and the best we can do without legislation is tighten up where it's feasible. Using a feed back loop to hone the initial screening might help a little, but I have no real idea.
No. of Recommendations: 7
Without increasing the number of personnel ( it's not going to materially change the number of folks who actually end up being removed. You just shuffle who gets reviewed in the process first.
Yes, but it still makes an effective sound bite for Trump's campaign. He knows the folks at his rallies don't read much, and their sources for information do little more than repeat the Trump campaign talking points.
It's no secret that immigration issues are the red meat Trump needs to get his rally MAGAts hot, bothered, and spending on all the crap at the schwag tables.
No. of Recommendations: 7
Trump had lousy lawyers; you educated me on that score with respect to the Administrative Practices Act. Surely Biden will have a creative way around the above.
Minor point - I don't think he had lousy lawyers. He was just a lousy President on that front. His lawyers lost on the APA not because they were bad lawyers, but because the Administration didn't bother doing what they needed to do in order to comply with those rules, and that came from the top. Trump wanted quick action and Executive Orders (and sometimes even announcing new policies via Twitter), rather than the many-months-long process of formal rule-making under the APA. Since he had no prior government experience, and little interest in adapting his own management style to the rules of federal government, he kept making that mistake over and over. The federal government doesn't work like a closely-held private business.
But he didn't lose these immigration cases on APA grounds (unlike the 'Muslim ban' cases). These, the Administration lost on the merits. The Immigration and Naturalization Act is pretty detailed, and Congress has directly spoken on most of these issues. They didn't leave the standard for a credible fear interview up to the discretion of the Executive - they wrote it into the statute. Same thing with "safe third country" measures; they wrote specific requirements into the statute that have to be met in order for that type of a system to be set up.
Biden can't circumvent those by being "creative" - again, he's already had his "safe third country" rule struck down by the courts as well. And I don't think he really thinks he can with these "new" proposals, either. Rather, I think the Administration has just concluded that there are political gains to the type of useless-but-performative measures that Trump took over and over again during his Administration. Immigration hawks like it when the Administration announces measures that are more restrictive, even if they're contrary to law and almost immediately stopped by the courts. The appearance of being aggressive towards immigrants is politically valuable, even if it doesn't do anything substantive.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Surely Biden will have a creative way around the above.
Those have been tried it seems. For anything major you need notice and comment. So now it's just tighten up where you can. We're stuck. There is no magical wave of the EO wand and the problem is cut in half. We need legislative changes and we aren't going to get them.
No. of Recommendations: 4
I think it might be safe to say most ideas have been tried by now and the best we can do without legislation is tighten up where it's feasible.
You could do a lot with more resources.
While most of the criticism lobbied at Biden and Mayorkas is unjustified, there is some blame to be laid at their feet. And that's in not diagnosing the problem caused by the mismatch between our current border controls and the changing demographics of immigrants and in not requesting additional resources to deal with that mismatch as soon as it started happening.
Early on (say, 2021), the Administration should have recognized that their resources for dealing with asylum requests were insufficient. A Mexican national who has is caught on the U.S. side of the border (and who doesn't claim asylum) can be very quickly removed to the other side of the border, but a national from any other country (and claiming asylum) can't be. So the change in composition of border encounters meant that those encounters couldn't be handled through the same processes. A significant increase in funding for immigration processing staff (officers and judges) and detention facilities could have kept the population of people waiting for hearings much more manageable.
Had Mayorkas - and perhaps Biden himself - been pounding the table and demanding more resources for asylee processing from the get-go, they could have avoided this pickle. Certainly it would have mitigated the political damage whether they got the funds or not; but if they had been successful in getting the resources, they could have substantially avoided the absolute number of asylees hanging out in the U.S. waiting for hearings. We had a system set up for tens of thousands of asylum applications per year, not hundreds of thousands of applications. It is a valid criticism to point out that the Administration chose not to demand a significant increase in resources - partially because it wasn't something they wanted to spend political capital on, and partially because they politically didn't want to admit that there was a problem down at the border. And maybe a little bit due to them just being slow to recognize a problem and thinking (hoping) that it will pass without the need for major action, reminiscent a bit of "Team Transitory" inflation policy which has also inflicted lasting political damage.
No. of Recommendations: 2
AlYou could do a lot with more resources.
That requires legislation and it looks like getting legislation is out.
. It is a valid criticism to point out that the Administration chose not to demand a significant increase in resources
Well, it didn't hit them over the head until Title 42 went away it appears, and then the election reared up. Aren't politicians always running for reelection though? Should've been on their minds. Ukraine funding is more important to me. I'm not happy with not meeting our commitments to democracy. I'm resigned on the border, it isn't getting fixed.
